MUMBAI: Express Towers, an iconic commercial building in South Mumbai's Nariman Point, is all set to get a new owner.

Ending months of negotiations, bulge-bracket American PE fund Blackstone together with one of its portfolio companies, Pune-based developer Panchshil Realty, is buying out the current owners - the Indian Express Group and ICICI Venture, the PE arm of India's largest private sector lender - for Rs 900 crore, said multiple people involved in the ongoing negotiations.

Blackstone's India headquarters is in the same building along with fellow PE companies Warburg and General Atlantic and consultant McKinsey. A formal announcement is expected soon, added the people mentioned above.

Express Towers, with 25 levels of office space, was built by Ramnath Goenka, the legendary founder of Indian Express Limited, with the aim of building the tallest tower in South Asia - a record it did manage to achieve and hold on to for two years after it was built in 1972.

Designed by renowned American architect and Indophile Joseph Allen Stein, this was also the first major building to be built on the reclaimed land of Nariman Point.